Secrets
by goldensnitch18
Summary: Draco and Hermione have been lovers in secret for four long years, while continuing on their real life relationships with Ron and Astoria. When Ron asks Hermione to marry him, their lives being to change.


Secrets

Chapter One: Nothing But An Ending

A/N : This first chapter is a one shot I wrote six years ago. I decided to rework it into an extended story.

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The home where they met sat easily sketched into the side of the hills so far from London that they rarely saw other people, let alone feared being caught. It was a lonely and ancient cottage, which he had found for the sole purpose of hiding their meetings from the watchful eyes of civilization. He had purchased it from the oldest son of the man who had lived in the cottage for seventy-eight years before the elderly man was forced to move into London so that his son could keep a closer eye on him.

Each morning when he awoke inside the largest of the three rooms in the cottage to feel her heart beating against his chest, he was reminded of the look of longing as the old man had taken in the site of his cottage for the last time. Even at that time, he had sensed the man's longing was much deeper than the bleached stone of the home, the wild flowers engulfing the terrain, and the lake which rested a twenty minute walk from the cottage. Time had proven him right.

When they were here, the pair of them were able to drop their frustrations, their worries, their loyalties, and devote themselves completely to each other. When they were here, the cottage wrapped them in a cocoon and made it seem like maybe, just maybe, what they were, what they did, what they lived was quite all right, quite acceptable, and not at all the horrible web of deception, lies, and treachery they knew it to be when they were living their real lives, the lives they lived when they were in London. The life in which she was a part of The Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, where she astounded him by making progress with her efforts to better the lives of house-elves and other creatures she felt were misunderstood and underrepresented, and he was working in the International Magical Office of Law in the Department of International Magical Cooperation and hoped one day to join the Wizengamot and become Head of the Department. It was a difficult task to be sure after the embarrassment that the end of the war had cast upon his family, but he was quickly proving himself to be a sturdy asset and a good worker.

This morning however was unlike any other he had spent at the cottage with her. He felt the difference the moment he awoke. She had already left their bed, but this was nothing new. She often woke before him and lost herself in the scenery, a book, or making breakfast. But this morning when she was not there he felt a shot of cold run through him and goose bumps form on his arms and legs.

It took him a moment to orient his senses and then he realized why her absence was bothering him. She had been distant the night before during dinner, her smiles had been a little too broad, her laugh a little too loud, and her kiss a little too cold. He'd asked her about her strange behavior, but she had pushed away his insecurities by simply ignoring them and pulled him out of the house to walk down to the lake with her. They had made love the night before and something had been different. The passion and love was still there, but she had seemed desperate to cling on to him, to hold him, to feel him move inside her. And, then she had cried, silent tears that slid down her cheeks and onto the sheets and his chest as he clutched her too him, terrified of the cause. And, now he did not know what to expect when he left this bed. Would he find the reason for her distance or her tears? Did he really want to know?

Knowing that it was futile to attempt to put off the inevitable, he slid from the bed slowly and pulled his jeans on from the night before. His button down shirt was missing, but he didn't have to think very hard about where it could be. She loved to wear his shirts when she awoke, and it made him feel like they were just normal lovers for a single moment when he saw her in one.

He moved to the attached bathroom then and took in the sight of their toiletries mixed on the counter and their towels hanging side by side on the rack right outside of the shower. Her brush was still in the sink and he moved it away to brush his teeth as he stared into the mirror, still wondering what it was that she saw in him, what it was that kept her coming here to their cottage, and what she had been thinking about the night before as he held her and felt her tears falling onto his skin, burning him.

Sure enough, when he found her on the back porch, staring off in the direction of the lake, spinning something small around one of her fingers, she was wearing his blue shirt, buttoned loosely at two places and hiding just enough to make his fingers itch to take it off, but he knew that this was not the time.

When she sensed him coming she turned to him and wrapped her hand around the object she had been spinning and held it out to him without speaking. Before his eyes fell on it he knew from the feel of the cold metal what it was, but nevertheless he forced his eyes down and made them take in the gold circle crowned with three diamonds, the largest of which rested in the middle of the two smaller.

He had once strolled into a jewelry shop under the guise of browsing for his mother and thought about buying such a ring for her and it had looked just like this one. For all he knew, it could have been the very ring he had imagined placing on her finger so many times.

But, this ring was not from him, and he knew who it was from. A certain red head she happened to date in their real lives. The man they had both known was suppose to become her husband and be the father of her children, but that had been before this. Before them. Somewhere in the deep recess of his mind he had imagined that one day he could give her this ring and they could stroll proudly down Diagon Alley together as she wore it, but that day would never come now, not that he had ever really expected it to.

"When did he give this to you?" He asked setting the ring on the edge of the chair she sat in, her eyes boring into his.

"Two nights ago. I said yes, naturally." She added knowing that he would have asked her if she hadn't freely released the information. "You know what this means?" She asked him placing the ring in the pen pocket of the shirt she was wearing.

"No. What?" He asked, though he had a good idea what was coming.

She looked away again, out towards the lake again. "We have to stop this." She told him, though her voice barely carried to him.

"Right. I suppose it's okay to cheat on your boyfriend for four years, but once you get the ring it's wrong." He could hear the bitterness in his own voice, but he couldn't bring himself to care either that he was revealing so much of himself or that his words would hurt her.

She couldn't respond to that so she just pushed herself up from the chair and came to stand in front of him. She took in the sight of his bare chest, his jeans, and the bare feet. "I love you." She said and it sounded not like an admission but more a realization. "I love you so much." She traced the outline of his face with her hand and pressed her lips to his shoulder.

"Marry me, then." He whispered. "I love you. I have loved you for so long. Maybe we haven't been best friends for eleven years, but I know the sides of you that you hide from even him. I was the person you came to. Me, not him."

"That isn't fair." Her voice still seemed to fly away with the breeze as she spoke the words. "He had lost his brother."

"But you were still here, you still needed someone." He brought her chin up with his hand and pressed his lips the sides of her mouth. "I was that someone, not him."

"I can't marry you." She said simply as their mouth's hovered a hair's width apart. "It's not the way things are supposed to end. You and I are not meant to be together. We are meant to part. We are meant to be with other people."

"Who gets to decide things like that?" He demands.

She sighs. "It's just the way it is. Ron and I ... we're ..."

"So, basically what you are telling me is that you won't marry me because it wouldn't be what is expected of you." He drew out of their embrace and watched her in a new light.

She was beautiful to him if not to most. Her hair was often out of control but her brown eyes shone with such a passion that he couldn't resist looking into them every time they flashed his way. Her lips were as vital to him as his own need for oxygen and her body was never more beautiful than when it was draped with one of his shirts. But, even so, he was starting to see what she was thinking, what she was trying to tell him. "Hermione, you are giving up on actually having passionate love, because it isn't what everyone else wants, and here I thought I was suppose to be the closed minded pureblood." He didn't wait for a response, he simply left her on the porch and walked back in the cottage, through the kitchen to the hall and then their room. He found a clean shirt in the closet and pulled it on as he heard her enter the room.

"I'll go back to London now. I'd appreciate it if you were gone by the morning. I'll have to sell this place if we won't need it anymore."

"Draco..." He winced at the lost tone of her voice, but he couldn't bear to let her pull him deeper into her. He was already losing his mind and if he had to listen to her talk about marrying him again, he would surely do something rash and horrific to her fiance that would end with him in front of the Wizengamot instead of seated amongst it's members.

"You've said enough, Hermione." He told her and spun on the spot, leaving nothing but a crack behind to jolt her into realizing what she had just done.

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A/N: Remember to review and add to alerts ! I hope you enjoyed this first chapter !

3 Megan


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